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Participants at the AGU-NESTA GIFT Workshop in 2011 working with one of the many classroom activities shared by our team of presenters.
Click on image for full sizePhoto by Gary Wagner, courtesy of AGU

2011 AGU-NESTA GIFT Workshop

NESTA and AGU teamed up to organize the 2011 AGU-NESTA GIFT Workshop, offered on December 5 - 6, 2011 at the 2011 American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco, California. The five presentation teams for the workshop were selected based on the exceptional quality and relevance of their proposed presentations and activities from among the 24 applicants for the opportunity to present. Resources presented in the workshop are freely available below.

In this workshop, the tsunami education programs from NOAA's National Weather Service, University of Alaska, the California Geological Survey, and the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hawaii shared the lessons learned from recent tsunamis in Honshu, Samoa, Chile, and Indonesia along with oral histories of past tsunamis as active life-saving lessions in the classroom.

In this workshop, we discussed the important roles that clouds play in the Earth-Atmosphere System. We talked about and demonstrated ways in which cloud observations and cloud science can be a useful tool for engaging students in science and science inquiry. And we spread the word about two NASA missions that allow students to be directly involved in NASA science - the CloudSat Education Network and the S'COOL project.

This workshop provided information about how scientists use large scale field campaigns to collect data about the Earth's atmosphere in order to learn more about climate science. The hands-on activities allow teachers and students to analyze climate data sets and gain a better understanding of how climate models work.

Scientists tell us that glaciers in the polar-regions are shrinking, but how do they know this and what might be causing this change? Examine and graph measurements from Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier (P.I.G.) to assess change. Develop a physical model using 'glacier goo' to explain what is happening to P.I.G., and how this connects to climate. The end result? You will be able to answer our question... Is P.I.G. a climate 'canary'?

5. Using Earth Science Data and Technology to Mitigate the Dangers of Airborne Volcanic Ash - presented by Kathryn Bertram and Peter Webley

Description

This workshop focused on classroom-friendly, web-based modeling techniques that mirror the processes scientists use to forecast the movement of volcanic ash in global airspace. It illustrates how supplying geophysical information to policymakers during an explosive eruption can mitigate the iimpacts of this natural disaster and save the lives of airline passengers around the world.

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